How in past years had I not noticed all the sunflowers and goldenrods that come out in the early fall? Maybe it's because they're not where we expect. These are not from one of our forest preserves but from the Craig Stettner Prairie, maintained by the biology department at Harper College in Palatine.

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There's a path through the campus that runs into Palatine — the only way from Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg to safely ride into Palatine, really — and that's how I found all this bright yellow. The nearby Paul Douglas Forest Preserve did offer its own field of gold.

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Unfortunately, all the things blooming anew bring a new round of allergies, on top of the common cold and flu. This time of year also seems to be the last hurrah for the bugs. Ticks, for one, were back in the news in Illinois. That had me updating my piece on what the increase in ticks means for bicyclists.

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What else is going on? Major organized rides have pretty much ended, but major construction projects affecting suburban bicyclists are wrapping up, too. Lake County announced that the final two of three Darrell Road roundabouts near Island Lake have opened, with the bordering bike path nearly complete.

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And the Village of Streamwood just warned of coming lane closures on Route 59 so crews can pour the concrete on that new bike-pedestrian bridge.

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Some local construction won't be done for a while yet. I just found some cracks paved over on the popular Busse Woods trail in the northwest suburbs (see the new video), but many more remain.

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And in Barrington, my goodness, it's all torn up around Route 14 and the train tracks as workers are now building temporary versions for the larger underpass project.

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Meanwhile, a little south in Bloomingdale, I discovered a nice little trail around the Bloomingdale Golf Club that's not as well-known as nearby trails. I wrote about it.​

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There's still a lot to see and do even with the shorter days. We keep rolling. — Neil

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